


odd eyes on you

by greetingsfrommaars



Series: writing chat prompts [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Bank Robbery, Gen, Office Setting, Superpowers, injuries, judgmental narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:35:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25090015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greetingsfrommaars/pseuds/greetingsfrommaars
Summary: You're a regular office worker born with the ability to "see" how dangerous a person is with a number scale of 1-10 above their heads. A toddler would be a 1, while a skilled soldier with a firearm may score a 7. Today, you notice the reserved new guy at the office measures a 10.
Series: writing chat prompts [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1619167
Kudos: 5





	odd eyes on you

**Author's Note:**

> (the summary is the prompt!)

10

Lisa’s calling it right now. If she sees a single score higher than 6 today, she’s going to buy herself boba and lord it over every paper-pusher in the office, calorie content be damned. Will some pencil of a human being gasp and chide her about the gastrointestinal effects of tapioca? Absolutely.

For a 7, it’d be worth it. (Even without a 7, it’d be worth it, just to see the looks on their faces. But, principles, self-restraint, y’know.)

Her prospects aren’t looking that good right now, unfortunately, but she has optimism. You can’t play this game without optimism. She’s been playing this game for years. She’s been taking every side street she can on the way to work, a different route every week, to clock as many scores as possible. Sometimes it pays off, and sometimes she just sloughs through a street full of 3s.

Thus is life, Lisa figures.

You see, when Lisa goes through life, she sees numbers. Not like a banker, or an engineer, but fun numbers. Single-digit numbers, floating above every person’s head, in an unassuming white font like a house number on a façade. Going up, going down, as the people trundle on their way, the numbers flipping like digits on a scoreboard.

Take this lady, for example. She’s waddling down the sidewalk with a leash in one hand, scrolling through her phone with the other. (3. _Typical_.) At the other end of the leash trots a tiny pug. The lady goes to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear and loses her grip on the leash. The pug’s almost a full block away in seconds. His owner bounces painfully behind him, clearly unused to jogging, calling his name breathlessly. 2. Pathetic.

A sullen teenager passes. 5. Maybe he’s got a knife; maybe he’s just scrappy. He stalks right past the woman, ignoring the dog situation completely. Some people have better things to do, clearly, like cut across the street on an improbable gap, and force the drivers (more 5s) to screech to a halt and start cursing.

Lisa crosses on the signal and comes to a quaint breakfast café. A gaggle of workers loiters in front, under the construction scaffolding. 4. One puts his steaming mug down on the step as he ties his shoe. 3.

Lisa scans ahead as she walks. Today really is dry, even for a more residential street.

A tiny child (2) dashes along while his mother follows on tired feet (6). That’s promising. Maybe she’s ex-military. If this is the highest she sees today, Lisa might even be satisfied. The kid trips onto his face just as he reaches her, but he and his mom are already old news, because _glory be_.

It’s a 7! He’s here!

After an uneventful morning walk, the highest number for the day turns out to be a food stall proprietor picking up a knife and going to town on a rack of meat.

She wasn’t sure it would happen, but now that she’s here, she’s absolutely going to bank on it. Today’s a boba day! The fun thing about 6 as a bet level is that it happens just often enough that she can reap the benefits, but not quite so much that those snakes in sales start calling her an unrestrained cow behind her back.

Who cares about them, anyway? She’s seen a 7 today! The rest of her commute flies by in a lingering victory high.

She rolls into work with the taste of sweet, sweet vindication on her tongue. And lychee green tea.

Minji and Merche are already at it again when she reaches their floor. (5 and 6, like usual.)

“I’m telling you, no one knows what’s up with this guy! He’s a total shut-in – hey, Lisa, how’s it hanging? – and he could be a nutcase for all we know!”

Lisa flaps a vague hand at Merche. It’s hanging just fine.

“Not every introvert is a secret psychopath, Mer.” Minji nods in greeting at Lisa. “He’s in a new environment. Maybe he’s just the type who needs time to get used to it – to settle into a new team, y’know?”

“He’s been showing up to the office at 6am every day! He’s had plenty of time to settle in!” Merche’s hands cut emphatic shapes in the air as she talks. “Besides, Ned says he never – don’t look at me like that! – Ned says he never comes to team lunches, so if it’s a sense of team fit he needs, he’s clearly not trying.”

“Since when did we accept Ned as a reputable source of info, huh?”

Lisa lets the by-play wash into a familiar background sound as they start to gravitate towards the door. Her friends can entertain themselves easily with the small-time affairs of workplace drama, but Lisa has way less of an attention span for tracing the clandestine hookups and very public breakups. She sees these people every day. Their scores only change so often, even if their romances spark and fizzle out faster than a firecracker.

(Minji grabs her daily green tea latte from the counter as they walk away. 6.)

Following her friends into the department proper, Lisa surveys the scene, just in case. There’s always the potential for someone to surprise you. Maybe less so in the clean-cut cubicles of an office complex, but hey, maybe someone hired an intern who’s handy with a letter opener or something.

(“Did you hear Ned got caught in a closet with one of those HR people? A supply closet! On the fourth floor!”

“Shut _up_! No way!”

Her friends pitch their voices down once others come within earshot.)

Probably nothing on the level of that 7 of a stall cook from her morning commute, sadly. It’d been a wicked-looking knife. Could he slice through bone with a single stroke? Or that frazzled mom, even. Does she have combat experience? She’d have to, to be a 6. Probably knows her way around a gun, then.

(“Isn’t it kinda sketchy though, ethically speaking I mean, to get involved with your HR person?

“Oh yeah, absolutely, but tell that to Ned, not me.” They snicker quietly.)

A 6, same as Merche on any given day, or even Minji on a good day. Lisa bets that mom can’t turn any paperweight into a near-motorized projectile, though. Minji has killer aim and stellar biceps.

(“He should be in the office today. He’s in the office way too early everyday. I’ll try to point him out.”

“Subtlety is key, Mer.”

“I know, I know.”)

They pass by the usual suspects as they stroll down towards the conference room for their morning meeting. Lisa knows by now not to expect too much. There’s the guy at the corner desk who keeps taking suspiciously long bathroom breaks. 3. The woman two desks in who fixes display issues for the team when IT takes too long to respond to their ticket. 4. That one pedantic paper-pusher who likes to lecture people on proper break room etiquette at the water cooler. 2, completely laughable. The only person who ever beats the daily maximum is Tim, human disaster extraordinaire, but he’s out with a stomach bug right now.

(“Look, there he is – no, turn slowly! Slow moves. _Slow moves._ Don’t attract attention –”

“Mer, this isn’t my first rodeo.”)

Lisa starts to tune back in, intrigued. Minji and Merche have their heads firmly facing the front, probably so they can side-eye their target more subtly. Their voices, already background-level, have muted even more, which should have been her first clue that something was up, honestly. Merche’s hissing warnings; Minji’s ignoring her and cutting a glance across the floor to the far corner.

Lisa turns to see for herself.

The new guy types away in his cubicle, as expected.

Plain white shirt and dark slacks. Reasonable posture in front of the computer monitor. Neat dark hair.

Flat brown eyes as he stares back at Lisa.

10.

…

 _Holy Buddha on a bicycle_ –  
  
  
  
9

She likes to think of this memory as her origin story, when she recalls it from time to time.

Most of the details escape her now. Honestly, she was barely conscious for most of her own dramatic backstory, but she remembers the sensation of the minutely bumpy wall against her skin, scraping her ear as her heavy head sagged forward. It stung a bit, but she barely noticed. She could barely think with the pounding behind her forehead, like some miserable being operating a jackhammer against the sides of her skull.

There’s the memory of coming to in a crowded bank. There’s a humanoid figure hovering over her, and people shouting. The humanoid figure brings a gentle hand to her temple, and the vague blob refocuses into a middle-aged woman in bifocals and sweats. She looks scared as she speaks, mouthing words of concern with increasing urgency, but Lisa can’t hear over the ringing in her ears.

She just leans her head back – feels a hand slip behind her head to soften her impact with the wall. She groans.

In time, she remembers sassing a masked man before he pulled a gun on her. Not one of her best moments, but hey, she barely made it out of bed before noon today. That was the most she was expecting out of herself in terms of being a functional human being.

She just wanted to make a deposit before she forgot again, okay? She actually dragged herself out onto the main street today. And this is what she has to show for it: a probable concussion, and what definitely look like hallucinatory numbers over people’s heads.

The woman fussing over her has a 4. There’s a 3 on a guy sitting against the wall behind her, and more digits floating over the other unwilling denizens of the bank, all the way up to 9’s over the bank robbers’ bellowing balaclavas. One brandishes his semi-automatic weapon, clearly a threat, and it sends all the little 3’s and 4’s and 5’s cowering against the floor. Lisa stares in spite of herself: the numbers follow the heads’ motion smoothly, like computer graphics in an infomercial or something. Here’s these unseen stats that follow you as you go through your life. Call now, and we can raise your stats for the meager price of half your earnings! Terms and conditions apply. Services not guaranteed at all locations, your results may vary, do not take before driving or operating heavy machinery, usage can cause increased apathy and mood swings…

So, there are numbers. She would ask about them, but people are kind of busy freaking out over the hostage situation. Oh well.

When she tries to stand, she finds the floor rushing at her at an alarming rate. Swift arms catch her around the middle before she can jostle her brains and compound her concussion. She turns.

It’s the guy. The 3 from further down the wall. 

He settles her against the wall again, next to the older woman (the 4), now with her head in her hands, shuddering.

Maybe Lisa should be a bit more worried.

She dimly tries to remember the repercussions that come with getting caught in a hostage situation. Maybe she’ll be on TV, and her dad will faint dead on the floor. He’ll stand stone-faced at the funeral. _She died doing what she hated_ , her friends will eulogize. _Pretending to be an adult when all she wanted to do was stay inside and play MMORPGs all day_.

They wouldn’t be wrong. Lisa spares a wistful thought for her sweet new armor, won just a day ago, as she lists sideways down the wall. Holding her head up is hard, okay? At least this way she might be able to get a look at her own magical floating number. Now there’s a thought.

She sags further and tilts her head up. She’d only ever be able to see the bottom of the number, as the person directly under it, but maybe if it has enough volume…

No dice. She sighs, staring blankly upward.

There’s a hand on her shoulder.

“Are… are you alright?” The older lady is hovering again.

Lisa makes a face. “Yeah, just… just trying to read – to see the number, y’know?”

The woman darts a hesitant glance towards the ceiling in the general direction of Lisa’s gaze. She’s not even close to checking Lisa’s mysterious floating stat – apparently Lisa really is hallucinating.

“I think maybe you should lie down again, hon. You’re looking… peaky.”

Lisa accepts this assessment with grace and flops all the way down.

What a nice floor pattern. Maybe. She can’t tell when it’s an inch from her nose. She’s trying to refocus her eyes, but she might throw up a bit first, who knows. Her stomach definitely has some complaints to share, and those masked men keep shouting back and forth as if they’re on either side of a canyon, instead of a tiny bank lobby.

Her cheek comes to rest against the tiled floor. She’s really getting close and personal with this gridlike pattern today. Maybe she could introduce it to Tanya, her interior designer friend. That girl would be all over it.

Assuming Lisa makes it out alive, of course.

“Hey, are you okay?” It’s that 3 guy.

Lisa opens her mouth and words come out. “I have an interior designer friend, but my tummy is mad…”

She gets a considering look. “Okay. Uh, hey, would you like this lollipop?” The guy struggles with his pockets for a second. “I grabbed it from the counter before, uh… before, y’know, all this.”

“No, but thanks,” Lisa says to the floor.

“Okay. Alright. Just let me know if you need – if you change your mind.” He backs off with an awkward wave.

With her head turned to the side, Lisa finds it much easier to focus on the numbers instead, floating and following the people’s heads in smooth arcs as they cower by the wall. Apparently this is her entertainment for now. She could do worse. If she’s going to hallucinate some Death Note shinigami eyes kind of nonsense, she may as well roll with it.

A loud sound bursts from the bank entrance. Everyone shuts up. A few beats pass – a SWAT team rolls in, bulletproof vests and all. They’re also 9’s. It’s a standoff. A 9-off.

Lisa observes as the 9’s hold their 9-off: yelling back and forth, cocking their guns at each other, refusing to stand down. It’s all very cliché, down to the hostages lined up down the wall. Even so, Lisa’s glad to be mostly horizontal and less noticeable.

In time, the robbers’ guns go down. 8. They surrender smaller handguns from holsters and waistbands. (The nearby 4 lets out a grateful whimper.) 7. The soldiers advance, weapons at the ready, and the robbers relinquish knives from who-knows-where. 6. Then the soldiers are upon them, and Lisa can barely see through the crowd of padded vests.

The army fatigues start to drain out through the front entrance, and the no-longer hostages kick off a round of applause.

A last robber wrenches at his guard’s grip, turning towards the lobby full of people. He’s in handcuffs, bound and tamed. 5.

The guard knocks him out with a swift blow. 1.

Huh.  
  
  
  
8

Let’s be real. Let’s be honest with ourselves; let’s take a deep dive into the most profound tenets of our business philosophy.

No one cares about weekly subteam productivity yields.

The manager currently presenting – a 3 – may be listing out completion metrics and tangible deliverables, but even she doesn’t care about weekly subteam productivity yields. She’s just conforming to the system: filling out the fifty forms, marking off the hundred micro-to-dos, breaking down the team’s work in far more detail than any other department really needs. But she’s long gone. In her mind, she’s already cuddling on the couch with her partner, or out dancing in a club, or something.

There’s no one else alert enough to call her out on it. Lisa sure as hell won’t bother.

Whenever she gives the room a quick glance-over, she just finds more of the same. 4’s and 3’s, eyes glazed over even as they watch the presenting manager gesticulate, or heads hunched over their tablets on esoteric errands. Minji, back to 5 now, taking sips of her latte, carefully rationed across the afternoon. Merche, 6 as always, unsubtly inspecting each fingernail in turn. (Lisa never understands why Merche goes to the trouble when they all know she’ll chip the polish again in her next MMA bout that night anyway.) All the usual suspects, laid out in a row, all the way up to…

At the far end of the table, a palpable presence even when silent, that new hire. That enigma of a business analyst. That anomaly, that curiosity, that stranger – the 10.

She’s trying to rein herself in from staring too obviously. No one else seems to pay him much attention, and her friends will latch onto it if they catch her _observing_. Not that the potential for scrutiny seems to bother _him_ much.

Every cross-departmental meeting, she feels eyes on her.

She keeps her head down. Pretends she’s taking notes like a good little corporate minion, when she’s actually devoting half her mental energy to a game of Minesweeper to stay awake. The guy on her left already knows not to say anything. She’s seen him with solitaire open – if she goes down, he’s coming with her.

After the senior VP formally closes the meeting, Lisa doesn’t bother to stand. She’s seen this song and dance before. One of the managers brings up a “small concern”, which promptly reveals its true colors as a Major Issue (from his point of view) within a few minutes of civil discussion. The rest of the department representatives glance around awkwardly at each other.

Five minutes pass.

Finally, Maureen, the assertive one, stands. With that, it’s actually time to file out.

Lisa stands and catches Merche’s eye, then Minji’s. Merche’s mouth quirks; Minji takes a pointed sip of her latte, flicking her eyes up at the ceiling. They won’t say anything untoward in public, while that manager is still here, but later on… Well. Lisa’s friends have never been the type to waste breath on false niceties.

But the tea can wait – in the meantime, Merche launches into a retelling of her MMA training this past week. She body-slammed some girl, then got punched, then punched back, et cetera et cetera. Lisa would’ve liked to be there in person. Merche’s unyielding personality always makes her fights brutally thrilling. Meanwhile, Minji looks politely distant, but she’s probably cataloguing Merche’s reenacted moves for future reference. She approaches aggression the same way she handles anything else: with all the grace and suddenness of a viper in the dark.

Lisa digs it. It’s way more fun than the rest of these cubicle dwellers, even if Lisa knew what to expect when she followed her parents into corporate servitude. It’s not like her parents did such a great job selling the perks of the 9-to-5 life, as hard as they pushed her make something respectable of herself.

There’s a well-dressed figure approaching. It’s Janine, 4: that one design lead who has free reign on trashing everyone else’s sketches, and consequently thinks she has free reign to trash the appearance of anyone or anything in the office. She stations herself at the edge of their trio. They don’t quite open up their circle to admit her. She opens her mouth to spout opinions anyway.

Honestly, Lisa tunes out half the nonsense coming out of Janine’s mouth, but she thinks the woman should really watch what she says when Minji just absorbed five new grappling strategies in the past five minutes. Janine can give the excuse of providing constructive criticisms to her dear colleagues, but they all know she just likes making people squirm. She likes the rush of power.

Too bad Minji will always have her outclassed, every time. They’re a 4 and a 5 (sometimes even 6). Small difference, but worlds apart.

Tim, on the other hand – now there’s a wildcard. Ever the human disaster extraordinaire, he consistently finds new ways to trip himself up and send the office into chaos. He’s making his way over right now, probably to make nice with Merche. Lisa’s friends have a long-running bet on when he’ll make a move on his crush. It’s all very petty and riveting, but what’s more interesting is the fact that his score is climbing steadily as he comes. 4, 5, 6…

Lisa glances around quickly. (She avoids eye contact with the 10 standing by the door.) There’s a cord running through the middle of the room, slightly raised, at the prime height to trip someone over.

Good thing she noticed. Who knows what would have happened otherwise.

7…

Lisa sometimes wonders if this knowledge of impending disaster raises her score. Not that she can see it, but it’s nice to imagine it climbing in moments like these, where the threat of danger looms near, and only she holds the power to respond.

She moves to draw on the nearest whiteboard. She’s got a marker in hand and nothing in mind, and she doesn’t really feel like dredging up some bogus diagram, but it does the trick. Janine takes a step towards her. Lisa’s got her where she needs to be.

Tim starts speedwalking.

8…

He trips over the cord, barrels into Janine, and knocks her out against the whiteboard ledge.

That’s probably enough for a concussion. She’ll be out of commission for months. They’ll have to hire some kind of “temporary” replacement.

Lisa hums to herself. It’s the small pleasures in life.

Tim’s already falling all over himself trying to apologize, groveling on the floor. Merche holds one of Minji’s handkerchiefs up to the wound to apply pressure, as Minji looks on.

Lisa glances toward the door in spite of herself.

When she looks at _him_ , he’s already staring back. He’s standing by the door, half-turned to the exit, hands in his pockets. 10.

Everyone else is rushing for the design lead. They prop up her head, freaking out for an ambulance.

He winks.

**Author's Note:**

> \- the theme song of this story is “Odd Eye” by SHINee  
> \- the main character names are kind of an inside joke with myself  
> \- I have two more scenes planned, and that was kind of my maximum for “how much I’ll write for this prompt if I have time” (the additional scenes would have left this at even more of a cliffhanger)  
> \- I just realized I never reached the point in my story where I was going to include the 10’s name. it’s Qin! if you know why, let's be friends!  
> \- this was actually written November-December 2019


End file.
